After a couple of months where I’ve struggled to put one of these together for various reasons, I feel like I got back into the groove in June. It’s been something of a return to safe ground, as I’m touching on a lot of TJPW, ChocoPro and Marvelous, but there are a couple of other things in there, and I just needed to find my spark again. Fingers crossed you enjoy it, and if you’ve got any cool recommendations that I missed, feel free to let me know!
Uta Takami vs Mizuki, Spring Tour in Nagoya (1/6/25), TJPW
The Uta Takami midcard match is becoming something of a guaranteed good time. She even recently managed to make me care about Itoh for a bit, reigniting a touch of that old Itoh Respect Army spark with her antics. Sadly, it was short-lived, but it’s a testament to how consistently entertaining Takami has been. She’s currently in her wrestling adolescence, growing in confidence in the ring as she adds more and more to her repertoire, but all without losing the squeaking and flopping that made her so appealing to begin with.
And while my instinct is to want to watch Uta be thrown around by giants like Max the Impaler, Mizuki is something of a perfect opponent for her. The rabbit pushed the pace, letting Uta show off her fancy hops while she scurried around the ring, trying to keep up with the big champ, but was also mean enough to trigger all the natural sympathy Takami’s presence brings. The rookie may have melted the rabbit’s heart into accepting a pre-match handshake, but that didn’t stop her from getting those sharp bunny teeth into her arm shortly afterwards. Uta is joining Pom as one of my favourite people to watch being bullied, as her instincts are sublime. She’s got a real talent for selling, not only flopping around but showing the toll the match had taken on her by stumbling back after her own strikes. Meanwhile, when Mizuki went for a slam, Uta fought against it with everything she had, making preventing that simple move feel like a mini-victory.
Then you’ve got the finish, which was a real spark of genius. I am in love with Uta’s brilliantly named Koala Clutch. She’s infused that move with so much personality, from the unusual angles she puts it on to her attempts at glowering off into the distance while she hangs off her opponent. It is like a particularly angry koala has decided to try and tap you out. Uta threw it at Mizuki multiple times here, hanging on longer with each attempt and forcing the champ to improvise. She did so brilliantly, hoisting the world’s floppiest koala up into a picture-perfect Cutie Special. It was a thing of beauty and a reminder that while Mizuki may look small, she’s got some power.
I adored this. The energetic rookie pushing the champ that little bit further than you might expect is something we’ve seen a million times before, but these two made it their own. Uta is a gem. It’s no coincidence that TJPW keep putting her in these spots, and so far, she’s stepped up to them all with style. My only real worry is that as she gets polished up, she loses some of the sparky personality that makes her special. That’s a concern for tomorrow, though. Right now, we can enjoy getting to watch the fierce wee koala do her thing.
Yuu vs Sora Ayame, Marvelous in Hokkaido (1/6/25), Marvelous
Sora Ayame is in the unfortunate position of being too natural an underdog babyface. For not the first (or the last) time in her career, she left this match with a giant handprint on her chest after Yuu made multiple attempts to cave it in. That combination of her quiet, nervous energy and those big puppy dog eyes make it too easy for people to lean into beating her black and blue. It’s not a bad thing for her career, but she’s going to end up with a lot of bruises.
It struck me, watching these two shows from Hokkaido, that coming through at the same time as Senka Akatsuki might be the best thing to happen to Sora. On paper, it’s an issue. Senka is already stealing the headlines, and with her brash and confident personality, it’s easy for Ayame to fade into the background. However, the more of them I watch, the more I’m convinced they’re perfect for each other. Sora’s vulnerability is only amplified by the presence of her over-the-top peer. If Ayame stood in that ring by herself, everyone would be calling for her to speak up. When she’s standing next to Senka, her shyness only makes her more endearing.
This match was also an example of why we’re going to miss Yuu. Whether you’re looking for a credible main eventer or a steady hand to open the show, Yuu can do it. My favourite type of Yuu match, however, is when she’s up against a smaller, weaker wrestler and decides that she’s going to see what they can do. She spent a decent portion of this standing in the centre of the ring, daring Sora to take her best shot, and it was the perfect response from a hoss to a fired-up wee rookie. Especially when it ]caused Ayame to fall back on an old tactic of hers and boot Yuu in the shine. We’ve lost, and are going to lose, a lot of great wrestlers this year, but few will leave a hole in as many companies as Yuu.
Shoko Nakajima vs Kaya Toribami, Spring Tour 2025 in Shinagawa (7/6/25), TJPW
There was a moment early in this match when Shoko, having faced the opening salvo of Toribami’s attack on her arm, used the momentum from an Irish whip to roll under the ropes and escape the ring. She then retreated to a safe distance, stretching out the limb that Kaya had painted her target across. As she did so, Toribami bounced up and down like a dog who’d heard the word walk, trying to do the sensible thing and not be lured to the outside. Eventually, though, she couldn’t take it. She was too amped up. This was her first title shot, and she didn’t want to be waiting around for her opponent. Of course, when she left the ring, Shoko was waiting, just as Toribami knew she would be.
I don’t particularly like recounting parts of matches, but I think that moment captures what made this great. Toribami, in the biggest spot of her career (even if it is for a title of a company that I don’t think anyone cares about), came in with a plan. It was a damn good one, too. We haven’t seen the bird do too much limb work in her career, but she was great here. Her driving Shoko’s arm into the ring post felt more like something Rika Tatsumi would do than our friendly bird. However, even with that plan, she was still in a spot she had never been in before. Title matches are the norm for Shoko. It’s where she does some of her best work. So, while Toribami was brimming with pent-up, frantic energy, Nakajima was at peace. She knew that her moment would come.
Before we got to that, though, Shoko got to show off her ability to sell an arm, and that’s something people should take advantage of more regularly. There were the small touches, the shaking it out and favouring her other side, but even when she went big, she pulled it off in style. If someone told me that her failure to hold the ropes for the 619 was a genuine botch rather than an attempt to put over the damage, I don’t think I’d argue too hard. That kind of selling so often feels performative (if your arm is that sore, why are you doing a cartwheel, Wakana?), but this felt like someone genuinely underestimating their ability to pull off one of their go-to moves.
And all of that was done to make this match about Toribami. The bird is in an interesting place in her career. Since debuting, it’s been clear she has a whole load of upside, but for whatever reason, things haven’t always clicked. She’s got the athleticism, but the spark that turns you into something more than that has sputtered and gone out whenever it’s looked likely to catch fire. This match, though, against the person who brought her into the wrestling, was a glimpse of the talent Kaya could be. The emotion that has sometimes been lacking suddenly overflowed as she was driven and aggressive in a way I didn’t know she had in her. I’ve never believed that Torippi wanted to win a match as much as I believed she wanted to win one here.
It left me thinking that if she’d been up against anyone other than Shoko, she might have. She dragged herself up to Nakajima, but when it came time to go that step further, she couldn’t get it over the line. Nakajima had one too many answers to her questions. However, that doesn’t change what Kaya did here. Shoko laid the groundwork for her to give this performance, but it was no carry job. She proved that she can get up to that level. If she can do it again – and do it with people other than the wrestler she’s clearly most comfortable with on the roster – Toribami might just take flight yet.
MiyaSoy (Miya Yotsuba & Soy) vs Team Hiyori (Hiyori Yawata & Chie Koishikawa), ChocoPro #454 (8/6/25), ChocoPro
I’m always intrigued to see how people like Soy develop. She’s big enough that her future was always going to lean towards the hoss side of things, but she’s not such a tank that she was going to be allowed to barrel through people from day one. Soy has had to earn the right to wrestle like a powerhouse. Thankfully, we’re starting to see that come to fruition. She always had great instincts, but she’s now also got the confidence to stand her ground, refusing to budge an inch as Chie strained to get an advantage in the opening lock-up. I was a bit worried that Soy’s flustered and lovely nature would never allow her to tap into her full potential, but there’s some steel hidden under that boiler suit.
Of course, alongside Soy, the standout here was Hiyori, who continues to find new ways to delight me. You’ve got to assume that the world Yawata sees is not the same as the one we do. As I’ve noted before, Chie and Miya are incapable of being in the same room without sharing glares, their competitive natures pushing them to butt heads, but Hiyori stomped all over their attempts. From her insistence on starting the match (making the very valid point that they’re Team Hiyori, not Team Chie) to the constant attempts to get everyone chanting her name to demanding Koishikawa (who, let’s not forget, was the veteran in this match) tag out when she took control. She exists in her own little world, wandering through Ichigaya, trying to arrange things to her vision, and paying little to no attention to what everyone else is doing.
Combine all of that with the jock wrestling without the threat of someone saying a slur that MiyaSoy are making their calling card and one of my absolute favourites in Chie, and this was perfect Ichigaya undercard wrestling. You’ve got silliness, some sneakily good action and even a little bit of the underlying tension of the promotion bubbling up whenever Chie and Miya managed to escape Hiyori for a second. It might not be one I return to at the end of the year or even think about again, but it’s the kind of wrestling I can watch all day, and that’s good enough for me.
Hiyori Yawata vs Soy, ChocoPro #455 (14/6/25), ChocoPro
I know I already talked about these two this month, but there was a wealth of great little details in this one. Yes, it was another Hiyori nonsense fest, as Soy was dragged into playing the flustered straight woman to another Icihigaya menace, but that was only part of the story. Underneath that was a match between two people who are starting to put it all together.
Part of that was a continuation of what I mentioned above. Soy, once again, showed her rising status as a hoss in waiting. Hiyori is bigger than Chie, but the Evo rookie still didn’t give her an inch in the opening lock-up and was throwing some meaty strikes towards the end. Even more impressive, though, was the stuff we saw from Hiyori. She was working that front headlock, on the one hand using it as another chance to berate the crowd into chanting her name (they chanted for Soy), but also never getting lazy, constantly tweaking it to put more strain on her opponent. Even better was her approach to getting on the Camel Clutch, breaking it for a second or two to drive Soy into the mat, weakening her up so it could be locked on deeper. I’ve been praising Soy as a hoss, but there’s a chance that Hiyori’s nonsense is hiding that she’s transforming into one, too.
It’s so easy to pigeonhole wrestlers. You’ll see people dismiss someone like Sakura Hirota as a comedy gimmick, despite the fact she could probably shoot outwrestle 95% of your faves. I’m guilty of it myself. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll see a constant stream of Hiyori updates, all of which focus on the nonsense. However, no one is just one thing and matches like this are proof that these young wrestlers get this shit. I don’t want Hiyori to ever stop the silliness, but if she can build up this side of her personality at the same time, then she might turn out to be more than even I dreamed of.
RIKAEVIL & YUKIEVIL (w/ TORIEVIL) vs Mizuki & Suzume (w/ Sayuri Namba), Sayuri Namba’s Dream Come True Special (14/6/25), TJPW
The main event of Namba’s first and last produce show before she graduated from TJPW was a fun wee romp. It gave Rika a chance to unleash the evil, which is always a delight, and I liked that they didn’t lean into the temptation to have Namba suddenly turn into a wrestler at the end. We’ve seen so many non-wrestlers be gifted moments like that (the fashion seems to be to have them hit a Canadian Destroyer), and it can be fun, but her firing Mizuki and Suzume up by calling their names felt right. Truthfully, it’s probably not something I’ll ever go back to, but it was a nice way for the Tokyo Joshi roster to pay tribute to their beloved ring announcer.
However, I wanted to talk about Namba, so it makes the list regardless. She has been an ever-present in my Tokyo Joshi watching lifetime, and it’s hard to imagine the promotion without her. There are other companies with unique and charismatic ring announcers, but I don’t think there’s ever been quite as perfect a marriage as that between Sayuri Namba and TJPW. She gets it. Namba is funny and weird and awkward and confident and all the other contradictions which come together to make Tokyo Joshi as special as it is. On top of that, everyone loves her. She’s the friendly face at the ringside. The person who’ll rearrange someone’s gear or sort their hair. It might not seem like a big thing, but when you’ve got to put on a fucking wrestling match, something I’m still in awe of anyone being able to do, having that person around has to be a comfort. It’s a quirk I’ve noticed whenever Tommy appears in the promotion. Her very presence is enough to reassure those in the ring, and if you’re commanding half the adoration Tommy is, you’re doing something right.
As is the internet’s nature, I saw a few people catastrophising when this announcement was made. They were ready to declare that TJPW would never feel the same again. I don’t think that’s true. Namba will be missed by fans and wrestlers alike, but the vibes of that company are so much more than one person. It will be weird for a while, but that group will figure it out. Besides, Rise Shirai has been learning at the feet of one of the best, and I have no doubt she’ll have picked up plenty of tips. Now, the challenge is to let her find her feet by being herself, not forcing her to transform into Namba 2.0. Besides, I’m sure we’ll hear from Sayuri Namba again, one way or another. It’s hard to imagine anyone that extraordinary disappearing forever.
Makoto vs Veny, Early Summer Games (17/6/25), SEAdLINNNG
Makoto often feels like someone happy to play second fiddle to those around her. She’s spent the last few years as Veny’s number two in Las Egos, nipping into Ice Ribbons for tag runs with Ham and appearing at home in companies like ChocoPro and YMZ with their smaller crowds and more relaxed atmospheres. I’m perhaps projecting my own feelings onto her, but I always think back to the ChocoTalk she did with Emi Sakura during the pandemic. Despite all her success, when talking to her trainer, she seemed to revert to her early days, wilting down to become the awkward, comically useless character she was when she first broke through. To be clear, I don’t mean any of this as an insult. I think Makoto is an incredible tag-team wrestler and a constant highlight of those smaller shows, and I might be completely wrong about her, but I’ve always got the impression she likes her role just out of the spotlight.
And whether I’ve invented that or not, it does work for how this match developed. There was a sense here that Veny was dragging Makoto into this fight. She was the one who started laying in those hard strikes, hauling the action to the outside and ultimately leaving the challenger with a bloody mouth. It felt like she was demanding her partner and friend show the world who she is, and Makoto answered the call. We all know she’s brilliant. I can’t imagine anyone could watch her regularly and not see that, with her ability to hold countless epic SEAd tags together, allowing her flashier friends to shine around her, but this was her moment, and Veny made sure she took it. As the strikes tallied up, Makoto’s replies got harder and harder, and slowly but surely, she closed the gap between her and the champ. By the time that final flurry came, with the blood stains around her mouth, she looked like a total badass.
Makoto deserves this. I strongly believe not everyone needs to be given a run with the belt, but there are some loyal soldiers who have earned that opportunity. The SEAd title might not be the most important one in the world, but when you look at its history, it’s often been a sign of quality. Makoto is (and has been for a long time) worthy of holding that symbol. Whether my guesses at her feelings about where she wants to stand in wrestling are correct or complete nonsense, I’m delighted she’s been thrust into the spotlight, and I hope she gets a little bit of time to enjoy it.
Haru Kazashiro vs Ren Konatsu, Spring Tour in Kofu (21/6/25), TJPW
One of wrestling’s great joys is watching people come into their own. I’m not saying anything I haven’t said before about Haru here, but seeing her control this match against the young rookie (who is actually older than her) made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Where has that anxious lass who needed Runa Okuba to come along for her documentary gone? It’s hard to imagine Haru freezing up like that in front of the camera now. I don’t want to make any bold claims (I don’t actually know this child), but it feels like wrestling has already given her an awful lot.
To make it even better, she’s good. Potentially very good. She took control of this match, working over Konatsu’s arm and approaching it like a veteran. Her attacks were focused and well thought out, and while I think asking a rookie to sell a sustained attack on a limb is perhaps a bit ambitious, she’s hardly the first person to make that mistake. There are wrestlers I’ve heard described as the best in the world who haven’t figured out that attacking the body part someone uses to do all their moves often leads to it being forgotten. Ren did a solid job of selling it initially, but when it came time for her to get her hope spots in, it was quickly placed to the side. Still, I’m not about to berate a rookie for imperfections. She’s doing great so far.
There’s always going to be flaws in a match like this. Too much repetition, some work that perhaps didn’t look as brutal in execution as it did in theory and things of that ilk. However, I don’t really care about any of that. What I care about is seeing Haru come alive through the joy of wrestling. Whether she ends up doing this for the rest of her life or gives it up and heads off to college or to get a ‘real job’, I suspect her time in TJPW will always be important to her, and on those days when wrestling feels like the worst thing in the world, that’s a nice thing to think about.
Johnnie Robbie vs Senka Akatsuki, Marvelous (21/6/25), Marvelous
Part of what makes Senka Akatsuki so exciting is that she’s all forward momentum. I’m not entirely sure if it’s that she doesn’t want to stop or hasn’t quite figured out how to, but it amounts to the same thing. When she’s in the ring, she’s coming at you, using the fact that she’s already bigger and stronger than a lot of her opponents. Not only does it make her thrilling, but it forces experienced wrestlers to do more than plug her into their standard match. They have to figure out how to deal with this overenthusiastic bundle of muscles.
To my pleasant surprise, Robbie dealt with it expertly. When she tried to go head-to-head with Senka, it backfired more often than not. So, she adapted. Like a matador, she started baiting the rookie in, using that forward momentum to pull her into the positions Robbie wanted her to be in. She ducked and dodged, choosing her moments and using Senka’s brute force approach to her advantage. In the end, the thing that finally brought the rookie’s challenge to an end was her insistence on grandstanding before every pin attempt. Her pause to pose allowed Robbie to drive her boots up into Akatsuki’s face and switch the momentum for the last time. Senka has a million things going for her, but Robbie was the wiser head, and on the rookie’s first-ever title challenge (this was for the West Coast Pro belt), that proved the deciding factor.
There were some flaws to this. For all that she did right, Robbie wasn’t great when she did take control, as things ground to a halt a little bit. There’s also still a touch of the flail to Senka’s wrestling, as that go-go-go nature can make it feel like she’s charged into a room without actually considering what she wants to do. However, for a first title shot, this was great. Senka proved yet again to be miles ahead of her experience, and Robbie put on her best performance in Marvelous so far. That’s a good day at work.
El Desperado vs Jun Kasai, Death Pain Invitational (24/6/25), NJPW
A big Jun Kasai deathmatch in Korakuen Hall is a special thing. Korakuen has always had their favourites, but the 50-year-old deathmatch legend feels more like the hometown boy than any other. I’ve been lucky enough to see one live, and when that music hits, everyone reacts. They’ve witnessed those scars accumulate across his body for decades, and what makes him truly special is that through all that time, he has never once compromised. The Jun Kasai who walked out here to wrestle El Desperado was the same one who has done so countless other times to battle everyone who is anyone in the death match scene.
And maybe it’s the punk fan in me, but I adore Kasai for that. I adore that he’s spent his career on the outskirts, wrestling with glass in his back, blood in his eyes and a smile on his face. The story of this feud has been Kasai teaching Desperado to love wrestling. To realise that in among the blood and the guts and the pain, you’re doing this not to die but to feel alive, and while I can’t claim to have taken many light tubes to the head, I get that from watching Kasai wrestle. Whether he’s indulging Hyper Misao or stabbing Masashi Takeda, Kasai is as good a choice to represent the spirit of wrestling as anyone. He is a man who has made his body his career, carving it up as he earns the money he needs to care for his adorable daughter.
As for the match itself, this was pure spectacle. Everyone knew in their hearts that there was no chance that NJPW would allow the IWGP Junior title to end up around Kasai’s waist, but in that room, they wanted to believe. As the action escalated, glass coating the ring as both men’s bodies were ripped to shreds, you could feel the fans start to dream. With every big move that Kasai kicked out of and every blow he landed on Despy, it felt more and more like the impossible might, just on that day, start to become possible. Truthfully, I suspect if you put that same match in another room, on another day, with another wrestler not named Jun Kasai, I would have scoffed at it. By the end, they were laying it on mighty thick, kicking out time after time as they built to the finish, but here, it worked. It worked because of that history. Because of that scarred back and the desire of the fans to see Kasai get his moment.
It didn’t come. The expected result came crashing down on proceedings, and Tanahashi entered the ring to reward not Jun Kasai but El Desperado. Still, that doesn’t change anything. None of this changes anything. I’m happy for Kasai that he’s got something approaching the New Japan seal of approval, that he’s been so brilliant for so long that he broke down that door, but he didn’t need it. He’s Jun fucking Kasai, and if he’d never stepped foot on a Lion Mark in his life, he’d still be better than 90% of them. In the aftermath, he demanded Desperado promise him they’d do this again in ten years, when Kasai will be 60 years old, and my god, I hope it happens. Because the day we lose Jun Kasai is the day that the wrestling world gets a lot less interesting.
HYPE!3 (27/6/25), Hyper Misao Produce Show
What more can I say about Hyper Misao? For the third time, she used her produce show to shine a light on an underappreciated member of the TJPW roster. This time, it was Yuki Aino, the former ring announcer who still, even as she’s grown into her own over the last couple of years, is sometimes pigeonholed as Nodoka Tenma’s little sister. Misao built this show around her, and while I’m not going to bother recounting the plot (if you want an English summary, Dramatic DDT is where to go), it followed the previous two examples by introducing the fans to a new side of someone they’ve perhaps taken for granted.
It’s not just the effect of these shows that I love, however. Truthfully, if they were nonsense that achieved nothing, I’d still have a whole lot of time for them. What makes them special is the feeling of everyone coming together to honour Misao’s vision. It would be easy for the wrestlers to half-arse their way through this, winking at the fans as they did so, but no one even comes close. You can tell they adore their genius superhero and want to do everything in their power to make it work. From the wrestlers acting in the ring to Miu Watanabe helping out with the choreography to Pom Harajuku doing their hair, this is a group effort built around the mad ideas of one Hyper Misao.
And I think that’s a special thing to have. I’m not going to pretend I understood even half of what was going on here. With my Japanese, I could just about follow along with the main plot, using the previously mentioned Dramatic DDT report to fill in any gaps, but 99% of the jokes fly over my head. However, you can tell that these are labours of love. It’s not like Koda is opening the purse strings to put these things together. They’re wrestled into shape through sticky tape and admiration, and that’s what all my favourite wrestling looks like. Thank fuck for Hyper Misao and everyone willing to follow her down the rabbit hole that is her brain. The world is a better place for them.
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